London 2012 Olympics: Lord Harris believes Hello Sanctos and Scott Brash can win first show jumping gold since 1952

He has never tried to sweep the fact under one of his carpets. For a quarter
of a century, Lord Harris of Peckham, in between reigning as Britain’s king
of the rug trade and giving away millions of his millions in philanthropic
deeds, has been a magnate on a mission, in thrall to an Olympic obsession.

Real deal: Scott Brash and Hello Sanctos, who recorded two clear rounds during last week's FEI Nations Cup event at the Villa Borghese in RomePhoto: PA

When not battling to keep his 675-store Carpetright empire sailing along smoothly in choppy economic climes or busily bankrolling the transformation of his inner city London schools, the workaholic baron’s long-harboured dream has been to unearth a champion horse and fund a rider to pilot it to Britain’s first Olympic show jumping gold medal for 60 years.

In Hello Sanctos and Scott Brash, he wonders if the magic carpet ride is on. With Team GB’s selection process now reaching decisive stages in shows around Europe, the pair have won two major classes, including a $60,000 (£39,000) jackpot at a World Cup qualifying event in Florida, and jumping a brilliant double-clear round for Britain in the Nations Cup show in Rome eight days ago.

When Harris, 69 and sitting on a personal £200 million fortune, chanced upon this potential horse of a lifetime late last year, put up for sale in Germany by a frustrated Ukrainian billionaire who had supposedly fallen out with its rider, he knew he had to pull off a clandestine swoop for Britain.

He contacted his friend and co-owner, fellow home furnishings tycoon Lord Kirkham, who made his billion from DFS, and they agreed to take the plunge. They sent Brash, the Scot that Harris believes is the best young rider he has seen since David Broome’s heyday, to test the horse, Sanctos van het Gravenhof, at its German stables.

After a 45-minute try out, Brash reported back that it was as exciting as its reputation as a regular grand prix winner suggested.

The deal was done immediately to beat the equestrian transfer deadline and ensure the horse would be allowed under international rules to represent Britain. Harris had never seen his purchase in the flesh but poring over 26 videos of the horse had already convinced him.

“I liked it so much, I didn’t even try to bid the price down. How about that!” says the self-made tycoon with a satisfied chuckle at his offices in Purfleet, Essex.

Harris will not say how much it cost them, save that it is the most expensive animal he has ever bought in nearly half a century of trading, but it is believed that the peers pumped in a million euros each.

“It took me about 30 seconds to make my mind up to buy. I’m like that, though. If I see something I like and I can afford it, I’ll buy it,” he says. “I don’t think it’s a bargain, though. I’ll tell you if it’s a bargain if I win that Olympic gold medal.”

The sparky bay gelding, renamed Hello Sanctos, could be the ultimate 'Plastic Brit’. Belgian-born, stabled in the US and Germany, owned by an American and then a Ukrainian oil tycoon, the globe-trotting horse is now an honorary Scot at Brash’s stables in Peebles.

Not that anyone will care about his roots if, as Lord Harris hopes, it is part of the first British show jumping team to win gold since Col Harry Llewellyn on Foxhunter guided the 1952 champions in Helsinki.

We are getting ahead of ourselves, though. As Olympic selection hots up, nothing is guaranteed. Brash, still getting to know his brilliant but “tricky” Hello Sanctos, wonders if his trusty old campaigner, Intertoy Z, may be still the safer Olympic bet while Harris has, among the six horses he owns, another London hope, Tina Fletcher’s mount Hello Sailor.

“But I do think Sanctos is a great horse, as good as any I’ve ever owned,” enthuses Harris. “I’ve won everything else in show jumping and I believe Graham Kirkham and I have got a great chance to land Olympic gold.

“As a boy, my dream was to play football for Arsenal [instead, he has settled for becoming a director] but when David Broome started riding for me 40-odd years ago, my sporting ambitions changed.

“I’ll be 70 the month after the Games but I’ve still the same old competitive streak. I’m not in this to finish 10th.”

It is the same mentality which led to Phil Harris, a 15-year-old grammar schoolboy, inheriting his dad’s market stall in Peckham and two other shops and build the business into a European retail empire.

The same streak too which, after Harris had joined a pony club and was taught by future wife Pauline to ride horses on Streatham Common, saw him become accomplished enough to win a big show jumping class at 21.

Never quite good enough to reach the top, though, the thriving young businessman became an owner instead. He bought his first horse, Warlord, for Pauline.

“Cost something like £100. He galloped away with Pauline and jumped the protective wooden railings and I thought 'hello, must be pretty good’ and so I bought him!”

As his investments grew, Harris teamed up with Broome – “still the best rider I ever saw” — buying Sportsman and Philco for him to ride with huge success at a time when show jumping was a national attraction on the BBC.

But the Olympics was the dream. When rules outlawing professionals were relaxed for the 1988 Seoul Games, Broome rode another of Harris’s horses, Countryman, into silver medal position going into the final round.

“I can still remember it so clearly,” reflects Lord Harris. “Your tummy’s turning, you’re so nervous you can’t watch or concentrate on anything. I can see it now; if we go clear, it’s silver but three from home, he has a fence down.” Silver turned into fourth.

“But that day sparked something in me, the Olympic ambition which has driven me ever since.”

In Barcelona 1992, though, Harris and Britain’s equestrian chiefs fell out bitterly. There, Broome, due to ride another Harris horse, Countryman, was controversially dropped while Harris was already on his way to watch.

“They put another rider in at the last minute. I was furious with them and let them know it. After that, I gave up for a long while, just didn’t want to know,” he recalls.

So for 17 years, Britain’s show jumping team lost their major supporter until a new domestic hierarchy and the joint purchase, again with Lord Kirkham, of the exciting Hello Sailor wooed him back. Harris’s energy remains boundless at 69 – and it needs to.

“Business is difficult at the moment and will be for another two years,” concedes the man whose firm was forced to issue another profits warning recently.

“But I’m still working as hard as ever, 8.30 to seven every day, and still enjoying it.” Just as much as he still loves financing his academy schools.

“If you asked me whether I’d choose my schools before my show jumping, there would be no contest. One is helping change the lives of 20,000 children, the other is just my pleasure.

“But I’d have to say that, of all my life’s ambitions, winning that Olympic medal for Britain is the one I haven’t achieved. I’m determined not to let it beat me.”